Honor or with Death
by GIRL IN STORY
Summary: Bucky turned to face the cameras. "If you think this means you have a chance with him, remember I'm one of the world's deadliest assassins."
1. Chapter 1

It started when Steve came out.

"_But Steve," Natasha's eyes were wider than they would ever be if she were serious. "What about our kiss?"_

_Bucky's eyes narrowed, entirely serious. "What kiss?"_

"_It was a lie," Steve said quickly._

_Natasha made a little moue of discontent. "I thought you liked me." _

"_It was undercover!" Steve said too quickly. "Then, I mean, we were undercover. I mean—"_

It would have been on _Ellen_, but she had retired the year before. Syndicated television should've died out decades ago, but there was a niche market, so it was still on life support. That market was mostly people who were dying out and/or on life support. Old people were confused by screens that did more than one thing. There were also the hipsters, who claimed linear television was a more authentic experience.

Daytime TV had always been a popular place to market test diversity before putting it on prime time. It had started with _Oprah _and _Ellen_, but like most things on TV, it had eventually become less about progress and more about profits

There was a chat show co-hosted by a woman with Tourette's and a deaf-mute man. There was a court show with a blind judge. A man with hemophilia hosted the American spinoff of a Japanese game show called _Honor or with Death_, which had been both highly controversial and widely viewed.

The only one that lasted more than a few seasons was a live daytime chat show called _Wake Up With The Peacock._

The NBC chat show was hosted by Mary Richards. On screen, she was always giving people hugs or houses, and she was more likely to cry than any of her guests. Off screen, Steve actually liked her.

The set looked more like a living room than any living room Steve had ever seen. He, Mary, and Bucky were sitting on matching IKEA STRANDMON winged armchairs.

"_We've got to get IKEA, because these chairs never last very long. Guests throw them. I throw them. They get covered with blood, snot, tears. Placenta."_

_"I remember that episode," said Tony._

"_We won an Emmy." Mary smiled and her wrinkles grew wrinkles. _

"_Is that why you started confiscating chairs from your guests?" asked Tony. "I thought you were just punishing them for being rude."_

_Mary shrugged. "A little Type A, a little Type B."_

"_You could get plastic covers," said Steve._

"_Oh, honey. And I thought I was old."_

Behind them was a picture of the New York City skyline at night, even though the show was called _Wake Up With Marry_. Of course, it didn't air until 4:00 PM, but that was when Bucky usually woke up. Steve could see the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, and Central Parking. The view was obviously Photoshopped. The green roof of Central Parking had finally been paved over to make room for more cars.

"It wasn't Don't Ask Don't Tell," said Steve. "It was Don't Ask, Don't Even Think About It, because if you thought about it then you would be left with two options. You don't get what you want, or you get what you want, but you also get ostracized, beaten, maybe murdered. Brooklyn wasn't better than Berlin. It was just less organized."

"_I don't- don't deserve you."_

"_No, but you're stuck with me. Sorry buddy."_

"_Steve-"_

"_Bucky. Buck. __Has anyone else been through what you have?"_

"_No, but-"_

"_Has anyone else failed to resist less?"_

"_...Yes."_

"_Do you think you're better than them?"_

"_Careful, his head might explode."_

"_He's not a robot, Tony." _

"_He's like ⅙ robot."_

"It's different now," said Steve, "but it's hard to remember that it's different. It's hard to remember that I don't need to protect people when I see them holding hands in public. They still need protection, but not the same kind. Maybe if Captain America comes out now- Maybe that's another kind of protection. So yeah. I'm bisexual."

Bucky turned to face the cameras. "If you think this means you have a chance with him, remember I'm one of the world's deadliest assassins."

Steve gave him a soft smile, like he had just done something adorable.

"_Thank god," said Sam. "Maybe now he'll stop jumping out of helicopters without a parachute."_

"_Jumping out of what?"_

_Steve held his hands up placatingly. "Now, Bucky—"_

"_Don't you, 'Now, Bucky' me. We've talked about this."_

"_Technically, we've talked about jumping out of airplanes."_

"_The aircraft is not the issue, Steve. You're the issue. Mogs told me about the goddamn grenade."_

_Steve managed to get even paler, even though he was already pretty much a mole person. "Peggy told you about that?"_

"_I was saving it, Steve!"_

_Bucky looked so distressed about saving his grenade lecture for seventy years that Steve gave him a hug. _

"_Never again. You hear me, Rogers?" _

"_Of course not," said Steve. "You're back."_

_Bucky buried his face in Steve's neck, if only to hide how red his face had gotten. _

"_Never again anyway," Bucky said, somewhat muffled by Steve's neck._

"_Mmm," Steve said, entirely muffled by Bucky's hair. _

"_S'at a yes or a no?"_

_Steve spat out some hair. "Don't make me find out."_

_They started kissing, and Tony said, "So are all their conversations just going to end like this now?"_

"I would have come out sooner, if only to piss of the Republicans, but I was too much of a coward. I wasn't afraid of what people would think, but… there would be questions, and the only answer would be Bucky Barnes. I was afraid of how much that would hurt. Then I got Bucky back, but he was so traumatized by his experiences with Hydra, that I could never put that kind of pressure on him. Especially not- not knowing what they did to him."

Bucky interjected again, ostensibly just to change the subject. "Stevie didn't mean to imply that everyone who doesn't come out is a coward. He's just bad with speeches that aren't about patriotism. Your safety comes first."

Steve nodded eagerly, looking for all the world like an oversized golden retriever.

"One day, Sam took me aside and told me that I had two options. I tell Bucky how I feel and face rejection, or I let him go on thinkin' I don't love him anymore. Sam said I just needed someone to put it in a way that would-"

"Trigger your gargantuan martyr complex," said Bucky.

Steve wrinkled his nose, which just made him look like an oversized pug instead. "It's bad enough when my phone finishes my sentences."

"Then quit being so damn predictable, Rogers."

"Turned out there was a third option this time."

"How long have you been together?" asked Mary.

"Sorta' for two months, but also sorta' since 1926," said Steve, who had never been very good with time, even before it stopped for seventy years.

"19-" Mary was clearly doing some mental calculations. "Weren't you eight?"

"Yeah, but Bucky was nine, and he was the one proposin'."

"I asked his Ma for permission first," said Bucky.

Steve gave him that smile again. "Buck's old fashioned like that."

"And what did your mother say?" asked Marry.

"Same thing she said every time we wanted to do something together. 'As soon as Stevie's feeling better.'" Steve leaned forward so he could look at Bucky over the wing of his armchair. "Hey, Buck?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm feeling better."

Bucky's mouth twisted into the closest he came to a smile these days. It was solely reserved for Steve. "Was that a question, Rogers?"

"Well, that's not what Ma gave us her permission for."

"Can't let Sarah down."

"Nope."

"You wanna' get hitched, Stevie?" asked Bucky, and Steve made a face.

"You gotta' quit it with all the train metaphors, Buck."

"S'at a yes, punk?"

"Yes, jerk." Steve seemed to have completely forgotten that he was on live TV. "So what kinda' flowers do you want at the wedding?"

Bucky made a thoughtful noise. "Well, my favorite flowers are forget-me-nots."

"You fucking menace." Steve had definitely forgotten that he was on life TV.

"Careful, Rogers, or they'll figure out Captain America was in the army."

Steve blushed. "Remind me why I like you."

Bucky gave him that almost-smile again. "I forgot."

"_I would do anything for you."_

"_Doesn't that scare you?"_

"_No, Buck. I know you would never ask me to do anything I shouldn't."_

"_Hmph."_

"_Do you think I would ever ask you to do-"_

"_Jesus, Steve, yes, since you were six."_


	2. Chapter 2

"He would have let Tony kill him if I wasn't there," said Steve, walking across the common room carpet with the gingerness of a man in the middle of No Man's Land.

The _Flame War _franchise was the first point-and-click first-person shooter supported by virtual reality. Tony owned them all. _Social Justice Warriors, Active Thread, Spoilers of War, Affront Lines, Incendiary Spammo, Tit Offensive, _and _Bidding War _(none of them could beat the sniper level except for Bucky and Clint)_._

They were doing a Playthrough, so their fans could get to know them, although it was really so they could get to know each other without having to admit it.

"I would let Tony kill me now, but Steve is always around. It's funny that he's spent his whole life trying to stop an organization named after a tentacle monster when he is one."

Steve probably would have responded if he wasn't trying to KO an enemy combatant without letting go of the wand or Bucky.

Tony made an aborted movement at Bucky, which was not the same kind of aborted movement he made at Bucky two months ago. "I'm 12% sure Casper Friendly Ghost is joking, but now seems as good a time as any for one of those positive affirmation thingies. It wasn't your fault."

Tony had taken to therapy with the same obsession he did everything. Most things in the tower smelled like lavender now, including the common room, two of his suits, and DUM-E. He had five dream journals, which was probably excessive considering his insomnia.

Bucky shrugged, nearly dislodging Steve. "It was my hands."

"_Be gay," said Tony. "No one here's going to call the cops. Although that would be a very funny call. Should we- Does anyone wanna'- No? Okay. Be as gay as you want. Be gayer."_

"_Well, don't- I mean-" Pepper's face was redder than her hair. "This is a PG-13 room."_

"_You make it sound like there is protocol for if non-PG-13 things happened in this room," said Steve._

"_I'm married to Tony."_

For some reason, _Flame War_ didn't trigger anybody's PTSD even though Tony swore the beta versions had _given _him PTSD. No one believed that, but the first time he got KOed by the blaster level in _Incendiary Spammo_, Pepper made him take a break even though he had plenty of hearts left. Anyway, it was her turn.

It wasn't the action. Well, it was, but only because of the motion tracking. If it was off by half a millisecond, the result was simulator-sickness so bad that they had to wipe the headsets down with Clorox between levels.

Virtual reality was better for casual gaming. Puzzles. Vacation simulators. Zombie apocalypse survival games. At least zombies moved slow.

Tony also owned _Vacation Simulator_, but it just wasn't the same a real vacation. For one thing, the jet lag was worse. For another, everything smelled like Clorox.

"_Till the end of the line," said Steve._

"_Don't be gross," said Bucky. _

"_You guys do know that's a train metaphor, right?" asked Tony. "Isn't that a trigger or something?"_

"_It's something Bucky said to me once."_

"_What? You mean_ _after Sarah's funeral, when you told me you could get by on your own, like you thought I was just keepin' you around for your ma's cookin'?"_

"_Yeah," said Steve. _

"_Yeah, well, lucky you. It was just cause I got used to your ugly mug. I swear, Stevie, it was like your nose always knew you'd be huge."_

It turned out Tony and Bucky both preferred virtual reality to augmented reality, coffee to tea, dogs to humans, and mangos on our pizza, just to freak people out.

To be fair, Bucky had never tried augmented reality. When Stark Industries first released invisible phones, they sold out in under two hours, and after that, they couldn't be found anywhere for two weeks. One of Peter's classmates sold her kidney to buy one. Then she found out that wouldn't be enough and tried to sell the other one. The Avengers got there just in time.

By the time the invisible phones were back in stock, no one wanted them. They were only popular until people realized everyone else could see what they were looking at, which was usually porn. After that, they were only popular with jealous girlfriends.

"We've already had this conversation," said Tony.

"Technically, Bucky and I already had this conversation," said Steve.

"_It was my hands."_

_Steve made a frustrated noise, which was kind of like all of his frustrated noises, which simultaneously reminded Bucky of the issue at hand and distracted him from it. "Yeah, but they weren't yours. They were taken from you and used, and it's just… like someone stole your computer, and you got it back, and now you've got a virus, and you're looking at your browsing history, and it's full of spam, but you didn't click okay. Okay, I get it, I shouldn't make technological analogies."_

"_That actually wasn't half bad."_

"_Will you please stop spying on us in our own living quarters, Tony?"_

"_No." _

"_There's something you should know," said Bucky. "You, not Tony."_

"_..."_

"_..."_

"_Just because he's not talking doesn't mean he's not there," said Steve. "Well, actually-"_

"_I'll take what I can get," said Bucky. "So I got a virus."_

"_Buck, I get it. It's a bad analogy."_

"_From websites about..." Bucky plowed ahead without looking where he was going. "Private things."_

_"Are we talking about- The serum would prevent you from-"_

_"Not an actual virus, Steve! Just maybe... I don't want to go to those kinds of websites anymore."_

_"Oh. Oh! I would never make you- ask you to- I love you for what's inside, Bucky." _

"_Don't you know how hard it is to get intel from someone with brain damage, Capsicle?"_

"_What?"_

"_Get it? Because there's Intel Inside!"_

"_Jesus, Tony. We're trying to have a conversation about… private things."_

"_You're both a hundred years old. You can say sex."_

"_How long has Natasha been here?"_

"_Long enough."_

"Whatever," said Tony. "The pointy bit is… I get it. I know you wouldn't have killed Mom if it was really you. Dad, maybe, but Mom talked about you. How you took her to the Folly when Dad was working on the shield with Steve. How you bought her schnapps even though I guess they had already stopped doing anything for you. How you talked about the war, the future. Me. Hell, I might not have been born if you hadn't convinced Mom that Howard's genes weren't a total lost cause. I'm surprised you even knew about genes. They were discovered in what 1905? Weren't you like, twenty by then?"

Steve sighed. "You're a mathematical genius, Tony. Stop pretending you don't know how old we are."

Bucky made the same aborted movement that Tony just had, but then he got a look on his face. It was not unlike Steve's I'm-Going-To-Do-The-Right-Thing Face, which was not unlike Clint's I've-Had-Too-Much-Pizza Face. He detached Steve, stood up, and gave Tony a one-armed hug.

"I think Cap's ovaries just exploded," whispered Clint.

"I don't h- Even if I did, they wouldn't- What do you think the serum did to me?" whispered Steve.

When Tony got his voice back, he said, "Quit holding out on me."

So Bucky hugged him with the metal arm too, and he didn't even react when Tony started tinkering with it.


	3. Chapter 3

Most of the Avengers had comics made about them at one time or another, so last year they hosted a Comic Con panel with a Q&A and photo opportunity. Steve had his first entirely psychosomatic asthma attack after finding out how much people had to pay for the photos. During the Q&A, a hundred people had to be turned away, and the hall was still filled past capacity. So many people tried to sneak that the fire department shut them down.

Comic Con took up all five million square feet of the Javits Center. Steve kept getting lost. It didn't help that a lot of people were cosplaying as the Avengers. At one point, he was mistaken for a cosplayer, but at least he won the contest.

"_Greatest tactical mind of the 20th Century, my ass." Bucky actually laughed, which thrilled Steve, even if it was at his expense. "He only had one tactic, and that was to get into fights with people who were bigger'n him."_

"_Bucky came up with most of our plans, but he insisted I take credit. Something about how it wouldn't sound so great to the folks back home if the boy sidekick was coming up with the plans."_

"_Seriously," said Bucky. "Fuck those comics."_

"_Hey, they probably helped you go incognito on your rip-roaring rampage of revenge," said Tony. _

"_So he was your tactical mind, your sniper, and his own spotter?" Clint asked. (He had once asked Steve who was spotter for Bucky during the war only for Steve to say, "What's a spotter?")_

"_And medic," said Bucky. "Sarah taught me nursin' whenever Steve used his only tactic."_

"_And supply officer," said Steve. "Bucky could sell an Oculus Rift to Helen Keller."_

_When everyone looked at him, he said, "I don't know what that means. I heard Tony say it."_

"_So what exactly did you do?" Sam asked him._

"_Mascot," Steve and Bucky said in unison. _

This year, Bucky had the idea to go incognito. They dressed as each other. To hide their identity, they wore cheap knockoff masks they had picked up on Canal Street (along with a few fake Pashminas for Pepper, because she liked to give them as gifts to her competitors).

Thor went as Steve, and Steve went as Thor. At one point, he was mistaken as Brad Pitt from Troy, but at least he won the contest. Bucky went as Clint, who went as Tony, because "I don't want to dress up as a kid sidekick." (Bucky had kicked him in the side, but in a friendly way.) Natasha went as Sailor Moon, because there wasn't enough female representation in the Avengers, and she'd been growing her hair out.

"_I want to kill everyone who ever hurt you," Steve said, with child-like fervor. Bucky had another nightmare, and for once he had talked about it. _

_Hydra had tried to make him torture someone exactly once, because apparently the Winter Soldier didn't have a clear understanding of how much pain most people could take. _

_Steve was thinking about calling the whole Comic Con thing off. The whole thing. No one should get to go dress up and have fun when some people's idea of fun was taking electrodes and-_

"_Steve." Bucky reached out to gently brush a strand of hair back from his eyes. "Ain't nobody got time for that."_

On the third day of the con, the Avengers revealed their true identities. They ended up giving a (free) photo session and Q&A and in the middle of the hall floor. It was filled to capacity, and its capacity was much greater than the conferences rooms set aside for panels. The fire department showed up, but they just asked if they could stay.


End file.
